We’re now over 9 years past the point the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) was signed. I would imagine we should be able to get some short term economic and historical perspective on whether it has worked as the proponents advertised, or failed as the detractors predicted at this point.
What happened? Did it work as advertised below… or not?
astro you sure you don’t have a body double called David Orchard?
Well the WTO says that world trade averages out to about 5% over the same period. During the same period Canada’s trade has doubled for a growth rate of 8%. http://txt.2ontario.com/welcome/txt_coib_503.cfm Now mind you over the same period our reliance on the US has also dramatically gone up and our dollars has dropped so it’s possible it’s not nearly as advantageous as it might look.
From a Canadian perspective the deal (along with the FTA) was to secure access to American markets. As the crowd will quickly fill you in, protectionist forces in American domestic politics can wreck havoc on exporting countries (i.e. Softwood lumber), steel etc.
As far as I am aware it has. Sort of. It increased trade between the three countries, and probably gave a boost to Mexican exporters. I don’t think any countries are wildly better off because of it, and indeed, Mexico may be worse off since American businesses destroyed what little domestic industry Mexico had.
I dunno. I’ll call it a wash.
Speaking from first-hand experience with a large Maquiladora factory in Tijuana…um… No, Mexican industry is alive and kicking…
In fact, one interesting thing is that we’ll hire Mexican labor for technical or managerial jobs, and, just about the time they’ve been trained and brought up to speed…they leave and go into business for themselves! So the very success of the program is causing upward pressure on wages! Seriously, from what I’ve seen, the program is helping to build a tier of small Mexican industries.
However, I must confess that my perspective is narrow… Things might be different in other fields…
Trinopus
Hey, my company performs the same service for the benefit of the Indian and Pakistani IT community!
You mean this guy? Nooo… I don’t think so. I don’t think I could dress that badly if I tried.
Consensus that I’ve heard from people who should know: On the whole, NAFTA is doing well, although some things are moving slower than expected.
Obviously, it’s hard to judge anecdotally. Some companies and some industries are hurt or helped, so you have to look at the big picture.
Speaking from an economic development point of view this is probably the single greatest thing that could have happened because of NAFTA.
Amen. And it’s one thing RAH predicted. Anyone read it? I think it’s Expanded Universe, The Best Of All Possible Worlds.
Not quite the same… but close.
Sorry astro, inside Canadian joke. The Progressive Conservative (Centre Right) just finished a leadership convention and David Orchard played king maker. The PC’s introduced FTA and NAFTA to a wildly under whelmed Canada. This guy’s king maker play states that there will be a blue ribbon review of NAFTA. It all wrapped up Sunday or your question was nicely timed.
Snappy mustache no? 
so your question
damn
Now , I was just a youngin when all this NAFTA stuff happened, but I seem to remember the powers that be talking about new jobs inside the US as well as outside.
Or even just keeping the jobs we did have.
Or…maybe…not having millions of highly skilled and even more highly motivated people working at Taco Bell for minimum wage just so their kids don’t starve!
I truly don’t understand why no one else seems to be really upset about this. If we no longer make the useless crap this great nation was founded upon, then we can’t afford to buy the useless crap, and if we’re so far in debt that we can’t even finance other countries crappy commerce, then where in the hell are we going to get our crap?!?!
Oh, yeah, and NAFTA didn’t help, but it did do exactly what it was supposed to do, just not what they told us it would do.
In Canada part of what the FTA and NAFTA were suppose to do, was to keep US market open in the event of protectionist measures. I’m giving it a provisional pass despite steel and softwood lumber.
Protectionist = self preservation = staying around long enough to continue to import Celine Dion albums.
I guess I’m against it on a purely aesthetic basis.